On Permissionlessnes by Talip Citrea || EPS 2025 Workshop

[applause] Thank you all.

Yeah, thanks for joining again. Uh, normally my presentation was at the next one, but then I had to go somewhere else. So, thanks for the organizer and the gentleman from Cakewallet to swapping the session with mine. Um, yeah, today I'm going to talk about something that I find particularly interesting. It's about permissionless networks and how we stand today in the Ethereum ecosystem.

Um just a quick intro, my name is Talip. I was an engineer in fintech for several years and then I joined a company called Chainway Labs. Back then we were building rail gun and proof of innocence and then also contributed to privacy pools to some degree and then now we're working on a project called Citria. It's a ZK roll up on Bitcoin. Uh if you want to learn more about what's going on about it or if you want to learn more about trust minimize bridges just find me in the exit.

we can talk more. Um, and most of my time nowadays is going on on Twitter and fighting with Bitcoin maxis particularly about mostly about the definition of permissionless or permissionlessness. So um because of this today I want to dedicate my time on this. We will first go over the definition of permissionless networks and then I will tell you some interesting stories that's going on on the other end of the world and then we will go over different thought experiments. um particularly on potential feature scenarios and then lastly I will dedicate my respect to forks and potential forks that is going on that can go on in the world.

So permissionlessness um generally we consider a network permissionless regularly if anyone is free to participate and no one is able to stop that person from participating to the network. If you want to take it into a much more much detailed um much interesting discussion, you can also consider in different levels such as being able to use being able to validate but then on top of that you can also think about whether you're able to produce blocks in this blockchain or whether you're able to change the rules of this blockchain. Um all of these are technically different levels. um you know there's the user level, node level and then being able to produce blocks is kind of consensus level. Um but yeah like if you want to think more about this these are kind of the definitions that I came up with um a couple nights ago basically thinking about some minutes ours um and then you know if you question where Bitcoin and Ethereum stand in all this um I would say they're very similar because both in both networks today as of now you're kind of free to use and you're kind of free to validate by running a full node and then you're also kind of able to produce blocks.

What I mean is um if you have enough Ethereum, you can also join the network as a you know block proposal blog proposer or if you have enough hash power or if you got lucky you can also produce blocks on Bitcoin as well. Um are you going to be able to change the rules? Well, that is kind of debatable. If you're not as influential as Vitalik or something, it's hard for you probably. But still, there's a non-zero chance that you can propose a change and then it gets voted in the community.

So I think they're doing good but can they do better? So I don't know but at the end of the day everything falls back to consensus right. Um in all these things that we do what permission in gives us is anything that fits under the consensus should always be valid and should always be applicable whether you like it or not. That's more of a you problem. That's not anyone else's problem.

And you may see this trivial but actually it is not. Let's consider this. So story time in early 2023 or very late 2023 222 there has been different kind of images started to appear in bitcoin blockchain famously unfortunately dickbots and then these essentially became a protocol called ordinals and then it got very popular to the degree that they started to consume much of the block space and then people started to create basically alternative economies just like NFTs with it. People were just playing around inscribing images on blockchain and then yoloing whatever they want. And then obviously this had some side effects because now the meool of Bitcoin was looking like this in which that means to be just able to just to be able to send some simple money transfers you needed to pay a good amount of fees and particularly on Bitcoin this is very painful.

The fees can jump very very quickly rather than Ethereum. And then not everyone was happy about this. uh they started to call this a bug even though they were technically consensus valid many users of Bitcoin at least and not less like I can say many users of Bitcoin many users of Bitcoin were particularly angry about this and then they wanted these transactions to be blocked particularly on consensus level from the blockchain and you know it's been two years or almost three and nothing has been changed these images are still inscribed on Bitcoin and people are still angry about it but you know many of the technical audience of Bitcoin, they didn't want to block these images even though they find it maybe as well because then that would mean applying arbitrary changes applying just some censorship to transactions. So they don't want and they didn't want to take the slippery slope. Um even though some developers also tried to fix it by everything they kind of failed or we can say properly failed.

So these images are still being published and Bitcoin is kind of still relatively permissionless because they're still there. Um but then the censorship trials also had some you know side effects. What I mean is for example some of these attempts also blocked the privacy solutions on Bitcoin such as coin joints. That means there were some mixers on Bitcoin and then these mixers also um kind of started to get filtered out by some of these changes against these images on some other clients. So it's again like whether intentionally or unintentionally it created the effect of censoring some transactions that you don't like or censoring some transactions that you know you shouldn't worry about.

And uh today the developers of Samurai are in jail or they're about to go jail uh because of their privacy solution. I hope that we can find some solutions for them or we can you know get them out. But um you know I guess this is kind of a downside of having permissionless networks and regulators being able to capture it to some degree. Um yeah but this story didn't end here. What do I mean is there's a version two of this.

So the diagram you see is uh what we're building at the moment. It is our bridge design to Bitcoin. It's some crazy complex scheme. Um somewhere in these arrows we publish 144 bytes. And then to publish 144 bytes is a little bit tricky on Bitcoin.

Uh so we had to come up with some changes and then some of the Bitcoin cords saw what we're doing and then saw the potential side effects of it and then they changed some of the policy rules of Bitcoin. It's not a consensus level change. It's more like changing a config in your G or red node that does not impact consensus. But then with this change, people were then still able to put a little bit more images even. And then as you can guess, Bitcoin Maxis didn't like it at all.

And so they started to come up with different proposals or different clients. And one of these proposals were B44, which was mostly revolving around limiting all images on Bitcoin saying it is illegal and if people were to put some illegal content on it, then all the Bitcoin node runners will be under prosecution or whatever. And then they literally try to sort of force miners to not to mine any of these transactions that they don't like. Um it's it's and and these discussions are still going on. It's like a cat and mouse game because every time the proposal puts more restrictions, the spammer the spammers basically come up with different ways to get ahead of it.

Um and so far they were not really able to stop all these crazy arbitrary data on Bitcoin. And uh you know we keep memeing about this but this is kind of what it looks like. you know people on different sides basically keep fighting against each other. I find it funny but it's also part of a reflection of current governance mechanism of Bitcoin which I don't want to go dive here otherwise this talk will be one hour but all in all um whether Bitcoin is captured or not is a funny discussion that keeps going on among all these spammer discussions and if you type permissionless to your Twitter search bar which I did last night you will see thousands of tweets like this and this is only from one podcaster that blocked me because I said Bitcoin is permissionless people can do whatever they want. Per their definition, permissionless is only true if Bitcoin is used as money and they just keep ranting about it on Twitter.

Whether you agree or not, I don't know. It's up to you. But it is really funny and really interesting thought experiments considering the some things are permissions for you and not for the others. And also they claim that Bitcoin price is going down because of the incriptions and images and changes which is I don't know if your network is problematic with um any minimal policy change and then prices tend to go down maybe you should not even run that client in the first place or run that network in the first place. But yeah I think if we were to summarize there's a saying like rules for D not for me.

And then for this case it is mostly like rules for me not for D because um people claim that consensus rules apply to them but then the very same set of people also try to get ahead of some other people who are literally doing consensus transactions. So it is fun discussions but unfortunately many developers hours get spent and I can't do much about it. Um so yeah this was the updates from the very silly Bitcoin world but then you know how about the Ethereum world? what's going on here. So obviously we all like Ethereum I hope I mean if you're here and then you know we all love permissionless systems but then how much we like it or till when do we prefer to like it that means is there a limit of truth that we have or that we can burden um and is there anything that we're uncomfortable with for example if you're sleeping in your house one day and then if you see this lady in front of your door then will you still be happy that you're running an Ethereum full node or will you still be happy that you're participating to Ethereum consensus?

I don't know. This is a question that you need to ask yourself, but this is a question that may happen because it happened to some people. Law enforcements basically got to the houses of people and then started arresting them. So, this can happen. Be careful.

And then, are you comfortable with your permissionless network having illegal images? Because at the moment on Bitcoin we know that there are actually unfortunately child sexual abuse material existing on blockchain. So are you okay with also having them probably hopefully not but maybe on Ethereum blockchain and then what do you want to do about it? If this dickbot shows up in your note then are you comfortable with it or something else? Um what do you think about it?

And then you know and the the funny thing is probably you won't even be able to stop it to some degree because you know there's something called Shannon's information theory and there's the entropy aspect of it. No matter how hard you try probably 99% of chance this image will get stored somewhere somehow if people are really really really ambitious about it. So I don't know that is really some trade-off that you should consider about when you're running and participating in permissionless networks. And then what about the censorship of the miners and block producers you know how are we doing on Ethereum well today with it. Um so this is an image that I took screenshot today.

Uh this is from censorship pics and uh in terms of effect compliance for valators it actually looks much better than what I expected and per I mean claim I saw in one tweet. Um this was like almost 90% up when the things were really dark with tornado cache status but nowadays it's much better actually. So our validators and block producers are seems to be doing a good job. But if you also consider the me boost stuff then it seems a little bit more red but still uh there's a really good amount of non effect compliant blocks that we have. That means Kim Jong-un is happy.

That means you know being running a permissionless network is you know functioning good. Um yeah we all love permissionless systems. I mean you know why wouldn't you? Uh but there are some costs of it. You know, for example, if you want to truly participate in a permissionless system today on Ethereum, then you need 32 ETH to basically participate it on a consensus level.

And then, you know, the consensus has its own rules and then these rules are mostly very deterministic. What I mean is you cannot socially try to um slash people based on wherever they're connecting from or whatever. There are some tricks that you can do, but in general, you cannot do that. And then you know Kim Jong-un obviously can they become a validator or can they not become a valator? Well in fact they can become a valator and probably they will be happy about it but then again like this is kind of a cost you agreed to pay and this is kind of a cost that you should actually pay.

Um and these are some opinions that I took. I'm not going to read all of it, but uh I think the TLDDR part of it is um you know the Ethereum itself as a neutral mechanism that is running all the time shouldn't really be questioned that someone malicious is contributing to the network. It is basically what you are trying to do is get a permissionless network and this is something that you shouldn't um you shouldn't you know give to the right to someone else like it should always exist and it should always be there you know it is what it is you agree to it you should bear with it to some degree and then there's also fossil you know um the new headliner almost new headliner for glamsterdam and unfortunately it's not going to make the glamsterdam so probably next one Um and on top of the regular well later block proposer stuff we also get the fossil like there's now inclusion list by the well datators for the block producers and even though we love them they're now able to get you know any transaction they want to be certainly included by that block producer um you know Kim Jong-un may also try to include themselves or some of our well dators can really attest to having permissionless systems and then involve Kim Kim Jong-un whatever um or if you're running a well dator or are you going to grant them permission? Well, I don't know. I think you should, but there are also arguments against it because this is really really really a slippery slope.

Um and there's always a cost of it like you know there's bunch of costs and one of them is being slandered by Amin Slemani because he's not really about fossil like I see that many people in Ethereum world um claiming that fossil is a really great improvement which I agree but then there are other stuff that you know he comes with crazy bangers to you and says like fossil is not a great idea because then you are under more risk from us because then you know prosecutors can really up with you. Um, and then if you try to respond to him, he comes up with crazy bangers like this, saying like, "I didn't even see you in Alex's trials. Where are you?" And then, you know, you basically say, "Okay, you'll do great." But then, you know, there's not much you can say.

And to some degree, he's actually a little bit um making sense, I would say. um you know because the current existing schema you can run a validator from anywhere and then you know you can try to basically force the existing block producers into doing another things as well. So, um, you know, it's it's a really strange dilemma. It's a really strange, um, trade-off that you're getting into, but these are really philosophically even, um, fun fun discussions that I've been reading and thinking about. Um, and I think we all should be aware of it because I really like fossil and I really think that, you know, it should exist to some degree, but on the other hand, these are not really invalid concerns, I would say.

So, there is always a cost of participating in um, permissionless systems. Um, what else we have? I mean let's let's switch the topic a little bit. Well, we had the rollup scaling going on right for god knows many years and uh you know it was a success until it wasn't because so far all we have these red colors and many rollups are just stage zero and then they can just run compliance checks on your transactions or they can just stop your money from either withdrawing or whatever. Um but then it can also be a success because we have also a lot of stage one rollups and we have also going on stage two attempts with um you know these stage twos can also integrate privacy on their stack and then with that you can have an alternative scaling layer that also has that also grants you to be exit whenever you want from the system so that your money is you know available whenever you want whenever you want at whatever the cost and I think that's a great feature so I believe based on what I heard Aztec kind of achieved it.

So really kudos to them and then you know I'm saying thank you for their all the approach and idea and also this is kind of a distraction as well because um regulators may focus on L1 level but then you know if you also keep scaling on L2 and also if you keep integrating privacy on the L2 uh it may also help. One particular example is for example um lightning omnitcoin which is uh this is a really obscure topic but lightning to some degree gives you also a good amount of privacy as well and um it's also being used by people even though chain analysis keeps running heristics and tries to understand what's going on in the network and probably they achieve so uh still like getting the attention from L1 is I think helpful and this is good um and yeah you know one argument from Bitcoin side against Ethereum is mostly proof of work is superior which I a little bit agree but also a little bit disagree um the reason behind is very simple um attending to the proof of work system in both networks um in in Bitcoin particularly I mean Ethereum is not proof of work whatever like it's kind of economically permission because if you're running Bitcoin and then if you want to mine a block you need basically millions of dollars and then on Ethereum side it's actually the cost is lower um and you know We can even make the cost level because now Papa Vitalik wants to lower the price of staking and you know if it goes to one Ethereum I don't know the economical impact of it economic impact of it but still um they participated in network can even be much better and this is something that I think we want to see um and we're almost there I mean God knows I saw how many times the news of lowering staking but almost there almost almost we're getting there or if the ETH price keeps get getting lower and lower and lower then maybe uh it can help and you how offex sanctions were applied and today it's going much better whereas on the bitcoin world actually there are some big miners that are kind of doing the offx sanctions as well so this is going good I would say for the ethereum world um and there are you know to sum up elder bit there are always different spectrums of what we're doing and what we can do and what we shouldn't do um or you can also call them notions um you know one notion is again having illegal content on your blockchain it can happen, it will happen. If it already didn't happen, just you need to be, you know, get rid of it. Maybe you can apply some um policy filtering that you can do much like other decentralized data storage systems where they actually have some small printing mechanisms where they get rid of existing content that they don't like or they don't want. Um and then you know you may be forced to sanction some transactions or you may just disagree to do that and then keep carrying the spirits of running a permissionless system.

That's also one spectrum. And then the other one is social law. Today the validators are again really deterministic on Ethereum world but the moment for example if you recognize Kim Jong-un being a validator um today you cannot socially slash them or something but then you know in the future maybe if we see the occurrences occurrence of this being more and more maybe we can also put something something like a proof of innocence on top of that I don't know so that you know we can socially avoid them running in Ethereum node and then you can do some more filtering policy of transactions. You can do blacklist of addresses on L1 which never happened probably. I hope inshallah we call it in as Muslims.

Um and then you know you can make the privacy as just a simple optin niche but I think uh it's also a slippery slope like the more default you can get it the more better it gets. That's why I like the announcements happened in their connect menu. So if you're listening to this call or you know if you're a friend of mine or whatever um I want you to do some actions like one action or some of the followings actually because you know we need more and more to do um and particularly we're right now I think a little bit more relaxed because of the administration of today um you know current president in US and the family playing casino helps us to implement things that we want but then if the next election we get something worse and the Elizabeth Warren army gaining hack then you know obviously it will be harder for them to unroll changes that we did but we need to be really cautious and we need to be really fast on what we're doing as well. So just do some of things like you know just minimize the central choke points just if you're a bitcoin maxi decentralize mining more if you are an ethereum maxi make all the validating block proposing stuff much better you know make a better web boost design or whatever uh make stage two rollups and integrate privacy to some of it so that they become permissionless more and then you know make the UX of privacy easy because I don't know how many people are using railway wallet by rail gun but then there can be better solutions as well to that um keep assuming that every regulator is a and they will continue to be a That means you know the moment when the Trump is going down if they see that uh the Bitcoin price is going down and all the tokens they hold is going down the things that we already see based on I safely assume that you know there can be even terrible things that they can try to do um to make the price go back up or to make themselves even more richer or more billionaire. just assume that every regulator is a terrible and uh because this will also keep come back to us and then don't oversell the permissionlessness of the network because still it's not 100% permissionless I would say still there are some gates that you need to overcome still there are some stuff uh outside of consensus level so just be careful on that uh don't do too many podcasts or too many talks because you spend all your energy continuing speaking on events continuing doing podcast and then you forget that there are people outside of your circle uh that you need to really talk about.

All we keep doing is just a small circle jerk. Unfortunately, we need to touch some grass and do much better. Um this is something that we that we keep forgetting. All the events, all the things that we do is good, but we need to do much better than this. We need to educate how things are doing, how things are going and how things can be better.

Maybe you can tell people how to avoid taxes. I don't know by privacy, but do something. Um, one last thing is for the future, uh, get ready to fork everything because, you know, in the absolute catastrophic scenarios or in the worst cases, um, we may see really dark futures. Even though they became more and more unlikely, it's still possible. And, uh, I asked this question on my Twitter.

Um, you can follow me as well. Uh, what would it take to fork Ethereum today? Luckily, I got no answers almost except one answer, which I like and I prefer to have. Um, to fork a network, to fork something like Ethereum today. Um, all it takes is one guy.

Today it's called Vitalik, but then tomorrow Vitalic may disagree with you on something and you should be able to step up and then get ready to fork everything you have. Just, you know, stay calm, keep forking around everything. Have one of these. Uh, I was going to use a better resolution image, but then the internet was messed up, so unfortunately I couldn't. But then just keep these in your pocket so that you are more free to fork everything.

But yeah, thanks for listening. I hope I yapped good and I hope you enjoy my talk. Thank you.